Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Summary

Grendel watches a great horned goat attempt to ascend
the cliffside toward the mere. Angered by the goat’s dogged pursuit,
Grendel yells at the creature. When the goat does not respond, Grendel reacts
by throwing trees and stones at it. The goat continues to climb even
after its skull has been split, and appears to continue climbing even
after it dies.

That evening, Grendel goes to watch the humans and their
daily routines. An old woman tells a group of children about a giant
with the strength of thirty thanes who will come across the sea
someday. Later that same night, Grendel watches as people gather
at the bedside of the ailing Shaper. The Shaper tries to make a
prediction about the fate of the Danes, but he dies before he can
finish the sentence. About an hour later, the news of the Shaper’s
death arrives at the house of a sleeping nobleman, whose middle-aged
wife seems to have shared an unspoken, unconsummated love with the
Shaper. Grendel watches old women prepare the Shaper for burial,
and then he returns home to the mere.

Back in the cave, Grendel’s mother is progressing further
and further into insanity. Sensing some impending doom, she tries
to prevent Grendel from leaving the safety of the cave. She struggles
to speak her fears, but the only thing she can say besides her usual “Dool-dool”
is the nonsense phrase “Warovvish.” Despite his mother’s protests,
Grendel decides to attend the Shaper’s funeral.

At the funeral, the Shaper’s assistant, now a grown man,
takes the Shaper’s harp to sing a song of a king named Finn, who
battles with the Danes, his wife’s kinsmen. Finn’s troops are decimated
in the battle, and King Hnaef of the Danes—the brother of Finn’s wife—is
killed. Finn and the Danes make a truce, and Finn becomes lord of
the Danes. Hengest, a Danish thane, resents Finn and misses his
home. As soon as winter turns to spring, Hengest leads his men into
battle against Finn. Finn is killed, and Hengest, the queen, and the
Danes sail back to Denmark. After the Shaper’s assistant finishes the
song, the funeral pyre is lit, and the Shaper’s body is burnt.

That night, Grendel awakens suddenly and thinks he hears
the goat climbing up the cliff wall. His mother continues to make
unintelligible sounds, and Grendel deciphers “Warovvish” to mean “Beware
the fish.” Grendel is filled once again with a vague foreboding.
He makes reference to another monster he has met in the woods, a
wild old woman. He smells the dragon and finally decides to sleep,
leaving his war for the springtime, as is his custom. Grendel wakes
a final time in terror, imagining hands on his throat.

Analysis

Grendel’s vague feelings of foreboding and anticipation
intensify greatly in this chapter, while Grendel tries even harder
to stamp them down. He appears to be receiving messages from the
world around him. Some of these messages are blatant, like his mother’s ravings
and the old woman’s pronouncement; some are more cryptic, like the
goat’s mindless climb and the death of the Shaper. Everything around
Grendel has become stale, dull and tedious. Despite his assertion
that “there is nothing to expect,” he still finds himself awaiting
a major change. The first step in that process of change is the
death of the extremely influential Shaper. The Shaper’s passing not
only ends an epoch for Grendel but also the very notion of history
itself. The Shaper organizes historical detail in such a way that it
gives meaning to the present moment. The Shaper’s glorification of
Hrothgar’s ancestors, for example, legitimizes Hrothgar’s own rule.
In his claim that Grendel is descended from Cain, the world’s first
murderer, the Shaper employs a notion of history and lineage to justify
Grendel’s extermination. Upon the Shaper’s death, Grendel finds
that history has lost all its meaning. Events that occurred in the past
stay in the past: neither the glorious deeds of Scyld Shefing nor Grendel’s
own atrocities exists in the present moment.

Spent a lot of years working on 'Beowulf' and I reckon that the monsters represent human characters. In my view: Grendel represents Agnar, son of Ingeld; Grendel's Mum represents the daughter of Earl Swerting of Sweden (and the first wife of Ingeld); and the Dragon represents Onela, king of the Swedes. I think that there has been a scribal error right at the beginning of the poem, which has made Scyld's 'bearn' (Modern English, 'bairn') into Beowulf the First. Thus the real parallels of the poem have been lost.